It is getting very difficult to think of new titles for these blog posts but I think this one that I have chosen fits the bill nicely! Advent starts on the 1st of December after all as does this blog and although it is now over, we will look at the twixmas period too to bring it up to date fully.
Our Advent period was very busy…when is our life not busy these days?? We started it off by driving home from Cambridge where we had spent a lovely couple of nights. We had a great BandB in Fen Drayton which suited us down to the ground (Thorn House if any of you want to try it, we recommend it highly) as we were able to travel into Cambridge itself easily and then use the park and ride facility. We had a great visit to Geoff’s old college (Selwyn) where we saw the fabulous painting and enjoyed a nice lunch. Geoff was thrilled to be able to sit at the high table for the very first time although he said it felt very strange! After that visit we went into Cambridge itself and spent a nice afternoon visiting another exhibition we wanted to see and doing a bit of shopping. Geoff was very worried when I found the Cambridge Cheese Company shop and discovered St Nectaire cheese (always my favourite) and Prunes d’Agen (another delight) on sale as well as other French goodies! It was not a cheap shop…but delicious! All in all, we had a super couple of days, but I do wish Cambridge was not such a long drive from Carlisle!
We have done an extraordinary amount of churchy things during this advent season! We started it off with me reading a lesson at the advent service in Carlisle Cathedral where all the Christian denominations were invited to take part. I, of course, represented the Methodist Church of Carlisle. I found it very strange reading in there as we were in the choir nave part of the cathedral and the lectern actually faced the other wall so making it impossible to make eye contact with the congregation! All went well though and the service a nice…if a little too long for my liking. That cathedral is not a warm place to sit for over an hour! We have also done a vast amount of carol singing this year! Geoff and I have always tried to get people out carol singing wherever we have lived (with the exception of course of rural France) and so we organised two evenings of singing in the streets around our church. It was also a good opportunity to put leaflets through letterboxes telling folk of our upcoming services. This activity was a success…but it also gave me a lot of sympathy for poor posties as some of those letterboxes were flipping fierce! Everyone who came out to hear us were very pleased to see us (even if our singing was not wonderful) and the whole venture was deemed a success again. We completed yet another successful “café church” service during which we served mince pies, shortbread, coffee and tea to everyone whilst they were busy making figures out of plastic milk bottles which were then put into a nativity scene. This activity went much better than we had thought it would especially with the more elderly members of our congregation and everyone really enjoyed the whole thing. The resulting crib scene was really good too. We are winning with these café church services and we are getting more families to come, but they are really hard work! As well as all this Geoff and I have done lots of readings in church this month and I was persuaded to sing a duet with Hazel at the last service before Christmas. It has been a very long time since I did that!
We have been out and about too as usual during the month. We had a lovely lunch at the Blacksmith’s Arms at Talkin as always one Wednesday, ate well at the Cathedral café after carol singing at a local sheltered housing complex on another occasion, and met up with Mike and Linda for a pre-Christmas lunch at The Trout in Cockermouth too. Linda had slipped and fallen off a low garden wall the week before this and so was still recovering from an operation to pin bones in her broken wrist, but was quite cheerful. We were not so convinced that Mike was so sanguine, as he was discovering how difficult it is to wash and style his wife’s hair not to mention how much work goes into Christmas preparations! I also went over to Hexham for a lovely meet up with all my nursing pals one day where we all gossiped, shared photographs of various grandchildren and ate lunch! I was extremely touched by my friend Liz that morning, who had brought her Mum’s RVI nursing badge which she wanted me to have to replace mine which was stolen many years ago. Liz’s mother died last month and she told me she really wanted me to have this badge. I was very pleased to take it and had a few tears at her thoughtfulness. It is now back where it belongs on my old RVI staff nurses uniform ready for the next talk I give about our nurse training in the 70s. I went back across to Newcastle with Hazel and the little one, one Saturday where we viewed Fenwicks Christmas window (a longstanding family tradition) and then had lunch with two of my brothers and Matthew and Ethan who had travelled up from Manchester to go to Newcastle’s match that day. Matthew had won some tickets at work and Ethan was mega excited to be going to St James Park for the first time. The Magpies won too which really made his day!
Geoff has been revisiting his role of Father Christmas too this month following his successful appearance at the Christmas Fayre a few weeks ago! He was asked to go to a playgroup by a friend of Hazel’s and I accompanied him as his elf too! He loved every minute and even though some of the children were a bit too small to fully understand, he really got into his Ho-Ho-Hoing act with gusto! We have been doing a bit of babysitting too for Hazel and Phil as they went out with the Rotary Santa sleigh on a couple of occasions. They visited some “less well off” parts of Carlisle this time and came home suitably chastened by the way the people really appreciated them coming even if they couldn’t afford to put much money in their collecting tins. It turned out that once the jungle drums started beating in those areas, they had queues of 20 -30 minutes of children in their pjs waiting to talk to Santa. They were really pleased that Phil, in his capacity as president of his club this year, had decided to go into these estates which often get overlooked.
Something which has over-shadowed our month, has been the news of my nephew who had a massive heart attack a few weeks ago and who has had several complications since leading up to his heart more or less going into total heart failure at one point. He has spent several weeks now in The Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, some of which were on life support in the ICU and at times it was not certain that he would survive. However, survive he did, and although things are still critical for him in the future (he may need to have a heart transplant) he did manage to spend Christmas Day with his boys and hopefully will get home soon…albeit with lots of restrictions in his lifestyle and with a lot of medication.
Just before Christmas we drove down to Manchester to take family presents to Matthew, Susie and the grandchildren and to take Ethan and Hadley to a pantomime. We had chosen a performance in a place near Rochdale (tickets for the big pantos in Manchester were ridiculous prices) and we all had a really good time (oh yes we did!) hissing and booing the wicked Queen and cheering and laughing at the other characters! I am not a great lover of panto but seeing the excitement on the faces of the kids, especially Hadley, was well worth the trip
We all had a super Christmas day at Hazel and Phil’s as always. My brother Alan came across from the NE and we all enjoyed opening our presents, eating a delicious dinner and just being together again. The little one still doesn’t fully understand the Santa bit but she loved opening all her presents
(lots of those!) and playing with her new toys. The dolly’s pram and dolly we had given her, went down very well so we were very pleased too. I do think H and P will need to build an extension soon though to house all these toys! On Boxing Day, we made lunch for them here and spent a nice afternoon playing games.
To round off the festive season, we drove over to The Plough at Lupton…a half way point for us …and met up with my cousin Ken and his wife Joy, who live near Skipton. To say the weather was not good would be an understatement but we made it there and back, although driving over Shap on the M6 was a bit hairy at times with very heavy rain and high winds. I did not envy the high sided lorries who were struggling at times and in the evening (long after we had gotten home) there was the inevitable crashes and closure of the road. It was lovely to see Ken and Joy again though and to catch up with all the family news. That awful stormy weather continued for a couple of days …although again we seem to have escaped the worst of it yet again in Carlisle. A lot of my ex-colleagues from when I taught in the VIth form college in Tameside and who live near Stalybridge experienced the wrath of a mini tornado which caused a lot of damage. We escaped with just a bit of damage in our garden with fence panels having to be replaced but nothing serious, thank goodness.
And so, as I pack away my trusty old advent calendar (it will be 50 years old next year) and we begin to put Christmas behind us once again and start looking forward to a new year, I’ll bid you farewell. Next year will no doubt bring a few challenges, a few changes (not least some new neighbours as our friends Pam and Michael move into their new house…I will miss them!) but hopefully a lot of happiness, good health and of course another trip to France in February! Hope you all have a great New Year my friends.
Meilleurs Voeux, Bonne Annee, et Bonne Sante mes amis et a bientôt…